Father with phone in hand shot dead by police

Stephon Clark, with his mother, died when two officers each fired ten bullets

An unarmed black burglary suspect was killed when police who had cornered him at night in his grandmother’s backyard opened fire after spotting something in his hand.

The officers said later that in the darkness they had mistaken his phone for a gun as he took a step towards them.

Stephon Clark, 22, was a father of two who had been living at the house in Sacramento for about a month, his family said. His death has been called a police murder by the local branch of the Black Lives Matter protest group.

It is the latest killing by police of a black man in the United States. The increased presence of video cameras on police body armour and in witnesses’ phones has exposed officers’…

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